Many athletes in the world choose Triple Jump because they
are strong and have great speed. Others because apparently, they have done a
triple jump competition and the result was so impressive that they are selected
to became a triple jump athlete. Some of these reach the second level and some may
reach the elite level, but at what cost?
We are in 2019, in the 21st Century and many coaches
make the same mistakes when it comes to training someone for Triple Jump or
Long Jump. For example, we use the same training program for everybody, when we
know that each athlete has a different body composition, resulting in different
levels of progress, despite using the same program. As a coach, you have to have the ability to
tailor the programme to each individual athlete, being inventive with new jumps
exercises which will improve the suppleness and agility of the jumper even more.
One of the other big issues of a triple jumper is how
to work with time and space between the jumps.
What is Time and Space? It is what gives the athlete
the ability to know when he or she achieves e.g a hop of 6m, a step of 5.5m and
a final jump of 6m ( these numbers I'm saying are hypothetically).
If you chose an athlete to become a triple jumper, and
I am talking about both genders, the first thing you have to do is teach them
the basics of this discipline. It's a shame that many coaches only focus on
having results, and they forget to work hard on the basis. Worst of all ,many
believe that the basis is only trained in the preparation phase, and they do
not use it anymore during the year - this is a big mistake.
The BASICS in triple jump, teach the athlete the
correct form to improve each exercise, such as coordination, time and space,
balance, how to push the track during the approach etc. A
good base prevents risk of injury and maintains healthy physical condition of
the jumper.
The BASICS exercises are something that any athlete has
to keep doing for life, even if they are a professional jumper. Working on the
basis of this discipline will always keep the technique of the athlete polished
and the facility to improve every training
Another problem is how many times you train in a week.
It is impossible to achieve something, only training for 1 hour, once or twice
per week.
The warm up alone takes almost 45min, so when you
start the real training you don`t have enough time to accomplish a good training
session. In Europe, I can still observe athletes starting to do real jumps without
a proper warmup and without a good technique - it scares me when I see the coach
pushing them for better results under these circumstances.
Triple jump is a hard discipline to practice, that's
why you see that there are very few who keep jumping over the 17m + in men and
over the 14.50m + women, but when you work well at the base of this discipline,
you will create of a talented and great jumper.
If you only train 1 hour or 2 hours per week, that
means that the work on the BASIS will be poor, and if your coach is someone that
doesn’t have too much experience in this discipline, then as an athlete you are
wasting your time and you will risk injury and disappointment.
